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Their Child, by Robert Herrick—A Project Gutenberg eBook
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67115 ***</div>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" width="40%" alt="" /></div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p class="ph1"><span class="gapright"><i>LITTLE NOVELS BY</i></span><br />
<span class="gap"><i>FAVOURITE AUTHORS</i></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_dongle.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<p class="center"><span class="large">Their Child</span></p>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_singledongle.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<p class="center">ROBERT HERRICK</p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_logo.jpg" alt="" /></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_0"></span>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_frontispiece.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<p class="caption"><i>Robert Herrick</i></p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="titlepage">
<p class="ph2">Their Child</p>
<p>BY<br />
<span class="large">ROBERT HERRICK</span><br />
AUTHOR OF “THE WEB OF LIFE,” “THE MAN<br />
WHO WINS,” “THE GOSPEL OF FREEDOM,”<br />
ETC.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<p><span class="antiqua">New York</span><br />
<span class="large">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br />
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.<br />
1903<br />
<br />
<i>All rights reserved</i></p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p class="center">
<span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1903,<br />
<span class="smcap">By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br />
<br />
Set up, electrotyped, and published October, 1903.<br />
<br />
<br />
Norwood Press<br />
J. B. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.<br />
Norwood Mass., U.S.A.</p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<div class="blockquot">
<p>MR. ROBERT HERRICK, the author of
“The Gospel of Freedom,” “The Web of
Life,” and “The Real World,” was born
in Cambridge, Mass., April 26, 1868.
His father was a lawyer, practising in
Boston. His people on both sides were
of New England stock, the Herricks
running back in New England to 1632,
and the Emerys, Mannings, Hales, and
Peabodys, with whom among others his
genealogy is connected, having much the
same history. Mr. Herrick was educated
at the Cambridge public schools, and at
Harvard University, graduating in 1890.
His freshman year and part of his sophomore
year were spent in travelling in
the West Indies, Mexico, California,
Alaska, and other regions, in company
with his classmate, Philip Stanley Abbot.
While in college Mr. Herrick paid special
attention to English studies, attending
courses of lectures delivered by the late
Professor Child, Professor James, and
Professor Barrett Wendell, among others.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum2" id="Page_2">[2]</span>For a year he was one of the editors of the
<i>Harvard Advocate</i>, and contributed several
stories to that magazine. Later he
was editor of the <i>Harvard Monthly</i>—the
purely literary magazine of the University,—contributing
frequently to its
pages. One of his fellow-editors was
Norman Hapgood, the author of “Abraham
Lincoln: the Man of the People,”
and “George Washington.”</p>
<p>After graduation Mr. Herrick began to teach
English at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, under Professor George R.
Carpenter (now of Columbia University),
and continued to correct themes and to
give an occasional course in literature
until 1893, when he resigned his position
in Boston to accept an instructorship in
English at the University of Chicago.
In 1895 he was appointed Assistant Professor
of Rhetoric in the University, and
he has since taught chiefly Rhetoric and
English Composition.</p>
<p>The summer of 1892 he spent in England<span class="pagenum2" id="Page_3">[3]</span>
and on the Continent. In 1895 he went
abroad for fifteen months, for rest and
literary work, living in Paris and Florence
during most of the period. While
in Europe he wrote the first draft of “The
Man Who Wins,” which was published
two years later; also the first form of
“The Gospel of Freedom,” and various
short stories, which were first published
in the magazines and afterward reprinted
in “Literary Love Letters and Other
Stories,” and in “Love’s Dilemmas.”
In addition to his writing in the line of
fiction, Mr. Herrick has done a great
deal of work on more or less professional
topics. Magazine articles about methods
of teaching rhetoric, introductions and
notes for school editions of classics, one
or two text-books on rhetoric,—these
items give an idea of the sort of work
which has occupied Mr. Herrick’s attention
apart from fiction. He is one of the
few modern American writers who have
the courage and the strength to paint life<span class="pagenum2" id="Page_4">[4]</span>
exactly as they see it,—in its joy, its
beauty, its sombreness, and its sorrow
alike,—without making it seem happier
or nearer the ideal than it is.</p>
</div></div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span>
<h2 class="nobreak">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
</div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table">
<tr><td>Portrait of Robert Herrick</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_0"> <i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td class="tdr"><small>FACING PAGE</small></td></tr>
<tr><td>“His wife was ... hurriedly undressing the child”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_50"> 50</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“She knelt beside him and took his head in her hands”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_90"> 90</a></td></tr>
</table>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>
<h1>THEIR CHILD</h1>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_001.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<p class="ph2">THEIR CHILD</p>
<h2 class="nobreak">I</h2>
</div>
<div>
<img class="drop-cap" src="images/i_dropcapt.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="drop-cap2">“THERE he comes with Dora!
I am so glad. I wanted you
to see him so much—all of
you.”</p>
<p>The company gathered in the drawing-room
smiled sympathetically at the
mother’s pride. They craned their necks
about the window to get sight of the
small boy. He was a white speck in
the long green lawn.</p>
<p>“Comes rather reluctantly,” observed
Dr. Vessinger, with a touch of irony.
“Doesn’t seem to have his mother’s
taste for society!”</p>
<p>“The little dear! How cunning!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>
A perfect dear!” the women exclaimed
with more or less animation.</p>
<p>“Why, he is in such a temper! Little
Oscar! What is the matter with little
Oscar?”</p>
<p>The child’s screams could be heard
plainly, coming upward from the lawn,
in shrill bursts of infantile passion. Mrs.
Simmons was troubled with a mother’s
confusion and distress. The nurse was
holding little Oscar at arm’s length, for
safety, while the child circled about her,
kicking and thrusting with legs and
arms. Mrs. Simmons stepped through the
open window to the terrace and called:</p>
<p>“Oscar! Oscar!” But neither nurse
nor child paid any attention to her.</p>
<p>“He is occupied with a greater passion,”
the doctor laughed.</p>
<p>“Unconscious little animals, children,”
observed one of the women.</p>
<p>“He has temperament—”</p>
<p>“His mother’s?” another woman suggested
slyly. She was large, very
blonde, very well preserved, and was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>
known by her intimates as “the Magnificent
Wreck.”</p>
<p>The shrill cries penetrated at last
even the room beyond the large drawing-room
where the people were gathered,
and aroused the father, who had
been called on a matter of business into
the study. He stepped briskly into the
room,—a handsome man of forty, with
black curling hair and crisp black beard
cut to a point. His cheek-bones were
high, and the skin of his upper face was
ruddy, as from much living in the open
air.</p>
<p>“What is the matter with the boy?”
he demanded abruptly.</p>
<p>“Just a case of ‘I don’t want to,’”
observed Dr. Vessinger. “When we
are young and feel that way, we let the
world know it all of a sudden.”</p>
<p>“And when we are grown,” joined in
the large, blonde woman, smiling at the
doctor, “we say nothing, but do as we
like.”</p>
<p>“If we can,” added a young woman,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>
with nervous anxiety to be in the conversation.</p>
<p>Mrs. Simmons had disappeared
through the French window that opened
to the terrace. Her husband followed,
and the others lounged, after bandying
words on the occasion. They could see
below them on the slope of the lawn the
young mother, the nurse, the child.</p>
<p>“Why, Dora! What is the matter?”
they could hear her say. “Oscar, be
still. Be quiet and come to me.”</p>
<p>She must have spoken reprovingly to
the nurse, for next came in injured Irish
tones:</p>
<p>“What have <i>I</i> done, mum? The boy
was pounding the breath of life out of
the Vance child. I could not keep his
fists from his face. What have I done?
Indeed!”</p>
<p>“There, don’t answer any more.
Take Oscar to the nursery, and wash
his face, and bring him down. I want
these ladies and gentlemen to see him.”</p>
<p>Little Oscar, who had much the same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>
coloring and shape of head as his father,
listened quietly while his mother spoke
to the nurse. When she had finished and
Dora tugged at his hand, he shouted:</p>
<p>“I won’t! Do you hear? I won’t!
Don’t you touch me! I say, don’t you
touch me!”</p>
<p>He enunciated with great distinctness,
with mature deliberation. When the
nurse tried to take his arm, she received a
well-aimed blow in the pit of her stomach,
delivered with all the vigor of a lusty
five years.</p>
<p>“Oscar! Why, my little man!” the
mother exclaimed helplessly.</p>
<p>Mr. Simmons, who had been watching
the group, vaulted over the terrace wall
and strode rapidly down the slope.
Little Oscar, at the apparition of his
long-legged father, turned and fled
around the wing of the house. His
nurse followed grumblingly.</p>
<p>“Bravo!” exclaimed Dr. Vessinger,
satirically. “Young Hercules needs
the chastening hand of his sire.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>“We shall have to call <i>you</i> in, I guess,
Vessinger, if the kid’s temper gets worse.
It’s too much for his mother now, and
he is only afraid of me because I am
home so little he doesn’t exactly realize
I am his father. When he does, he will
be boxing <i>me</i>.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Simmons, red with
annoyance. “It has come all of a sudden,
too. He was so gentle as a baby,
so sweet. I think it must be the nurse,
Dora.”</p>
<p>The company looked sympathetic, and
she continued apologetically: “She is a
good woman, but she is so tactless.
She doesn’t know how to manage the
little fellow. She should appeal to his
reason, I think.”</p>
<p>“It is sometimes difficult to get a
quiet hearing,” observed the doctor.</p>
<p>“Tiresome creatures, nurses,” the
Magnificent Wreck added sympathetically.
“I can remember how I hated
<i>mine</i>.”</p>
<p>“Can you?” the younger woman put<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>
in inadvertently, as though called upon
to applaud a triumph of memory.</p>
<p>“But what a beautiful child!” exclaimed
the Magnificent one, declining
issue with the other. “So like his
father, as he stood there, his head
thrown back. When he whirled past
us just now, there was the gleam of the
Viking in his eyes!”</p>
<p>“Yes, all he needed was a carving-knife
to be a first-class pirate,” Vessinger
added lightly.</p>
<p>The father laughed, but not heartily;
and Vessinger, feeling the topic exhausted,
turned to his blonde neighbor:</p>
<p>“Mrs. Bellflower, there are real clouds
in the sky out there. What do you think
of our chances with the rain?”</p>
<p>“You mustn’t go!” their host and hostess
protested. Mrs. Simmons added in
an undertone: “I wonder if it <i>could</i> be
the thunder-storm that upset poor little
Oscar so completely? Thunder affects
me, always.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>Dr. Vessinger was at her elbow to say
good-by.</p>
<p>“It is charming to find you again,”
he said, taking her hand and looking
boldly into her face. “To find you in
this—this splendid scene, with your
charming child and your husband. You
are looking so young that, if it were not
for us others, I might shut my eyes and
believe I was in Sicily!”</p>
<p>He spoke deliberately, as though he
wished to give two meanings to every
word he uttered. The young woman’s
color changed, and her hands played
with the leaves of a book she had taken
at random from the table.</p>
<p>“You must come again, often—I
want to see you,” she said abruptly,
looking at him honestly. “I know you
have done some things since that time,
and I am glad of it!”</p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Oh, come! This is nonsense. You
aren’t going to slip away on any such
easy excuse as that,” burst in Simmons.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>
“See, your storm is passing around.
And if it comes, what could be finer
than a gallop back in the clear air after
the rain has washed the dirt out? It
will lay the dust, too.”</p>
<p>“No, no!” delivered Mrs. Bellflower.
“We don’t want to go yet, doctor.
Maybe we can stay to dinner if it rains.
Let’s go out to the terrace.”</p>
<p>They stepped out of the open windows
to the broad brick terrace that
completed the east side of the house.
Beneath them in the distance, to the
eastward, lay the great city, and beyond
they knew there was the sea. Over the
lofty chimneys and massy ramparts of
houses lowered the storm, which was
spreading in two forks about the horizon.
Slowly it was climbing up the dome of
the sky toward them. An edging of gold
fired the black mass from time to time.</p>
<p>“Grand place you have here, Simmons,”
Dr. Vessinger observed. “The
top of a hill not too high,—that’s the
right place for a country house.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>“If Olaf were only here oftener,”
the wife remarked. “He’s just come
home, and he says he must leave soon
again.”</p>
<p>“Yes, those Jews I work for, the
Techheimer Brothers, mean that I shall
earn my salary. They are dickering for
some new mines in Mexico, and want
me to look them over.”</p>
<p>“But you are promised to me for the
tenth,” Mrs. Bellflower protested.</p>
<p>“What are the Techheimers to that?”
commented the doctor.</p>
<p>“Nothing! I shall put them off
until the eleventh,” Simmons responded
heartily. “It’s going to be a
fierce jaunt, and I am not keen to
start.”</p>
<p>“Take us! We would all go, wouldn’t
we, Mrs. Simmons?” the younger woman
put in.</p>
<p>“I am afraid the hotels wouldn’t
please you down there. And queer
things happen sometimes. The last
time I was there—it was ticklish. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>
never wanted to go back. You wouldn’t
have liked it, not you women.”</p>
<p>“Tell it! Tell us!” they chorused.
Vessinger lit a cigarette and resigned
himself to watching the assembling
clouds. Imperceptibly he drew away
from the group, as if declining to be
one where he was not first.</p>
<p>“I <i>adore</i> adventures!” the Magnificent
Wreck added sentimentally, encouragingly.
Simmons folded his arms
across his breast. His eyes flashed pleasantly.
The story interested him, too:—</p>
<p>“Well, it was in ’91, for the Techheimer
Brothers. One of the first jobs
I did for them. They wired me from
St. Louis that a certain old Don from
whom I had bought several car-loads
of ore, which had been forwarded to
their smelter, had done us very prettily.
He had salted his cars very cleverly.
The ore ran short of the assay by several
thousand dollars, all told. I had made
the assay—you understand?</p>
<p>“It was my duty to take the three<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>
days’ journey from the City of Mexico to
Don Herara’s headquarters in the little
town of Los Puertos, see the old rascal,
and without having a quarrel, induce him
to refund the money he had cheated us
out of.</p>
<p>“Los Puertos is almost the loneliest
spot I ever got into, for a town. It is
at the end of a two days’ stage-ride
from the railroad. It is hell! Just peons,
a great adobe barracks where my old
thief lived, a swift river rushing down
from the mountains behind the town—nothing
more.</p>
<p>“You should have seen us the afternoon
of my arrival, sitting in the old
Don’s office, drinking <i>petits verres</i> and
swapping compliments. ‘Your honorable
excellency,’ said I; ‘Your noble
courtesy,’ said he. And so on. The
Don had white hair, a hawk nose, brown
eyes, that had slunk deep under his
brows, and the long white beard of a
patriarch. He was a most respectable
sinner!</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>“Every time some one stepped across
the room above I wanted to jump. I
thought he must have a dozen or so of
his peons hidden up there to slice me
with their great <i>machetes</i> when he gave
the signal. As the afternoon grew
mellow, I began to suggest in ten-foot
sentences that some rascally servant of
his honorable right-mindedness had been
deceiving his grace, and had caused my
poor masters the loss of some thousands
of dollars, the loss of which was nothing
to them compared with the sorrow they
felt that his honorable good name was
thus sullied by an unworthy servant.</p>
<p>“My old Don gulped my compliments
without a wink: he had known what I
was after all along, of course. When I
had turned the corner of the last Spanish
sentence, he nodded at me pleasantly,
but his brows were stretched like catgut.
He cleared his throat and spat, and I
seemed to hear all sorts of things going
on over my head. That little room was
the loneliest place on the earth just then.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>“Had you a pistol?” broke in Mrs.
Bellflower, breathlessly.</p>
<p>“I carefully left that behind me in the
City of Mexico. For if it should come
to that, it would only have complicated
matters. I rarely travel with a
revolver.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Bellflower regretted this lack of
picturesqueness.</p>
<p>“Well, my Don looked at me for a few
minutes. Then he said, ‘Shall we enjoy
the cool of the evening in a gentle
stroll?’ We went out on the stony trail
up toward the black mountains. They
looked cold and bare.</p>
<p>“‘Los Puertos,’ he remarked philosophically,
‘is a very small place. It is
very far away from your home, Señor
Simmons.’ ‘I have been in places
farther away, sir, and got back, too.’ ‘I
own it all, Señor Americano; every soul
of these people is mine.’ ‘So,’ I answered,
as stiff for the boast as he, ‘the
Techheimers are great people.’ And I
blew a lot about my bosses, how they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>
watched their men and took an eye for
an eye, every time. Finally, we turned
back toward the town and came through
a patch of cactus to the river, which was
brawling along over big stones. There
was a narrow foot-bridge across. ‘After
you,’ says the Don. I looked him in the
eye, and thought I saw the twinkle of
mischief.</p>
<p>“I never wanted to do murder before
or since. But there in the dusk, beside
that dirty river of mud and stones from
the mountains, where he meant to drown
me, I came near wringing his neck. I
guess my nerves had got tired of expecting
things to happen. I walked up
to him, and I must have looked fierce,
for he whistled, and one or two men who
were skulking about joined us. I was
so mad that a moment more and I should
have had my hands about his windpipe,
no matter whether they cut me into
mince-meat the next minute. Do you
know what it is to feel like doing murder?
It’s the drunkest kind of feeling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>
you can have—you don’t know yourself
at all—”</p>
<p>“I should like to try that!” sighed
Mrs. Bellflower.</p>
<p>At this point there seemed to come
somewhere from the rooms above a
frightened cry.</p>
<p>“Mercy!” exclaimed the young
woman, “what’s that?”</p>
<p>Mrs. Simmons sprang up, and stood
listening. Then they could all hear
distinctly in a woman’s voice:</p>
<p>“Oh, oh! He has killed me! Oh,
oh!” Then silence.</p>
<p>Before the last groans reached their
ears Mrs. Simmons had darted into the
dark drawing-room, calling as she sped,
“Oscar! my little Oscar!”</p>
<p>On the terrace they could hear again
more faintly the “Oh, oh, oh!” from
above.</p>
<p>“And what <i>did</i> happen to your old
Don?” Mrs. Bellflower asked with a
show of unconcern.</p>
<p>“Why, nothing much. I—”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>“Oh, Olaf! Come, Olaf!”</p>
<p>It was Mrs. Simmons’s voice this time.
Simmons bounded from the terrace,
calling:</p>
<p>“Yes, Evelyn! Coming, Evelyn!”</p>
<p>The others jumped from their chairs.</p>
<p>“Come, Dr. Vessinger!” exclaimed
the Magnificent Wreck. “I think it is
time you and I and Miss Flower were
gone. Where are the horses?”</p>
<p>“Do you think we should leave quite
yet?” the doctor asked, somewhat cynically.
“It seems to me the story has
just begun.”</p>
<p>“Well, you may stay for the end.
But I am going!”</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_024.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">II</h2>
</div>
<div>
<img class="drop-cap" src="images/i_dropcaps.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="drop-cap">SIMMONS stumbled across the
hall and up the dark staircase.
The coming storm had suddenly
blackened all the house. The
open doors of the bedrooms sucked out
the swaying air that came in puffs from
the windows. In the eastern room,
above the terrace where they had been
sitting, Simmons found his wife, clasping
their child in a hysterical embrace.</p>
<p>“What have you done? My darling—my
one—my Oscar!” A dry sob
ended the broken exclamations.</p>
<p>They were huddled in a heap upon
the floor beside the window. The child’s
face had a look of intense wonder, of
concentrated thought upon some difficult
idea which eluded his baby mind.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>
Across the iron cot at one side of the
room was stretched the inert form of the
nurse.</p>
<p>“Look at her, Olaf,” said Mrs. Simmons.
“He has—cut her—stabbed
her with the knife.”</p>
<p>As Simmons approached the bed, he
kicked something with his foot. It fell
upon the tiled fireplace with the tinkle of
steel. The woman on the bed groaned.
Simmons turned on the electric light,
and hastily examined the nurse.</p>
<p>“She’s not badly hurt, Evelyn. A
scratch along the neck. She fainted at
the sight of blood, I guess. But what
was the knife?”</p>
<p>He picked up the thing from the fireplace
and examined it. It was a long,
dull, sharp-pointed knife, brought from
the kitchen to cut bread with. Along
the edge it was faintly daubed with
blood. Simmons, still holding it in his
hands, stepped to the window. His
wife was crouching there, sobbing over
the child, whom she held in her arms<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>
tightly. Little Oscar’s eyes were fixed
upon the thunder-clouds outside. He
neither saw nor heard what was passing
in the room. The father leaned over
and touched his forehead with his hand.
The child shrank away.</p>
<p>“You must take him out of here, Evelyn!”
he said. “I will look after her.”</p>
<p>“She must have been cutting the
bread for his supper, and laid the knife
down on the table for a moment. I—I
told her never to leave it about. I have
been afraid—of something!”</p>
<p>“You have been afraid?” her husband
asked quickly. “Why so?”</p>
<p>The boy moved uneasily and turned
his head to watch his father.</p>
<p>“What you got my knife for?” he
demanded. “Give me my knife!”</p>
<p>“You shall never, never have it
again!” his mother moaned, clasping
him more tightly.</p>
<p>“Why not?” he asked curiously.
“What’s the matter with Dora? Why’s
she lying on my bed? Tell her to get<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>
up. I am tired. Oscar wants to go to
bed.”</p>
<p>His eyelids fell and rose, as though
the long search for the mysterious thing
in his mind had put him into a doze.</p>
<p>“He does not seem to know what he
has done. What is it? Olaf, what is
the matter with him?”</p>
<p>“Ssh, hush! Don’t rouse him. Get
him to bed. <i>Don’t</i> let him know. I’ll
look after Dora—she’s coming around
now—and then I’ll call Vessinger, if it
is necessary.”</p>
<p>“No! no! not him,” she protested
vehemently. “I don’t want him to see,
to know anything about it,—no one, but
he least of all.”</p>
<p>Simmons looked mystified by her vehemence.</p>
<p>“It all seems dark around me!” she
moaned.</p>
<p>“There,” he said soothingly. “Wrap
him in that dressing-gown and take him
to your room. I must attend to this
woman.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>In spite of his wife’s objections, however,
he went downstairs to look for
the doctor. The room and the terrace
were both empty; he could see the party
riding, like a group of scuttled birds, at
a hard gallop down the lane at the end
of the lawn.</p>
<p>“They might have waited to find
out!” he muttered. Great drops of
rain splashed on the bricks about him.
They had fled from his house even in
the teeth of the storm. He returned
hastily to the nurse, bathed the wound in
the neck, and gave her some liquor from
his flask. When she had gone to her
room, he went downstairs once more,
without crossing the hall to his wife’s
room. That took a kind of courage
which he did not have. Servants had
lit the lamps in the long room and pulled
the shades. Outside the rain swept
across the terrace and beat upon the
French windows. He waited, listening,
irresolute, unwilling to take the future
in his hands.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>Finally he detected a dragging step
on the stairs. His wife came slowly
toward him, her erect young woman’s
head crushed under a weight of fear.</p>
<p>“They have gone,” she sighed with
relief.</p>
<p>“Yes, they cleared out in the face of
the storm!”</p>
<p>“I am so glad!”</p>
<p>“Sit down, dear,” he urged, taking her
cold hands.</p>
<p>She disengaged herself from him before
he could kiss her, and sat down
beside the long table in a straight stiff
chair. She clasped her hands tightly
and looked at her husband with a face
of misery and horror.</p>
<p>“What is it, Olaf? Tell me what it
is. Tell me!”</p>
<p>“Why, what do you mean by <i>it</i>?” he
stammered.</p>
<p>“You know!” she exclaimed passionately.
“Don’t let us hide it any longer.
What is the matter with little Oscar, with
<i>our</i> child?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>“What do you mean?” He was still
looking for subterfuges.</p>
<p>“It wasn’t Dora. I knew he would
do it some day, and I have tried to keep
things that he could do harm with from
him. I dreaded this. Something seized
him,—something inside him,—and he
snatched the knife out of her hand.
When I got there, he was looking at the
knife. It was—all bloody. Oh, Olaf!
He was talking to himself. Then he
dropped the knife, and he didn’t seem
to remember. He is sleeping now, just
as if it had never happened.”</p>
<p>“It’s just his fearful temper, Evelyn,”
the man answered with an effort. “Dora
irritates him, and the thundery air and
all. You must pack up and get to the
seashore or mountains, where it’s more
bracing. He’s just nervous like you
and me, only more so, because he’s
smaller.”</p>
<p>She shook her head wearily. What
was the use of self-deception? Hadn’t
she watched this habit of rage for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>
months? The child was a part of her;
and more than she knew her hand or
her foot she knew him. Doctors talked
of nerves and diet. But she had seen
the storms gather in the child and
watched them burst.</p>
<p>“No! That is no use, Olaf. I can’t
tell myself those things any more and
be contented. It is worse!”</p>
<p>Simmons was walking up and down
the room, hands thrust in his pockets,
his face knit over the problem.</p>
<p>“All the world like old Oscar,” he
muttered, talking to himself.</p>
<p>His wife caught up the words greedily.</p>
<p>“Old Oscar Svenson, your step-father,
the one who brought you up and
gave you your education? The one we
named him after?”</p>
<p>The man nodded half guiltily.</p>
<p>“Yes, old Oscar,—the man who gave
me everything,—the chance to live, to
win you—all.”</p>
<p>He resumed his tramp to and fro
across the rug, scrupulously refraining<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>
from stepping beyond the border. His
wife still kept her eyes fixed on him, as
though resolved to win from him the
secret of the matter. Suddenly she
rose and went to him, putting her arms
about his neck.</p>
<p>“Let me look at you! You have
always been a good man, I know. You
need not tell me so. This cannot be
some terrible revenge for your weakness
or wickedness. Have I not held you in
my arms? I should have known, if it
had been you, for whom our boy suffers.”</p>
<p>He kissed her tenderly and led her to
a couch; then knelt down beside her.</p>
<p>“No, Evelyn—not that. But you
must be calm or you will lose your head.
You take it too seriously. Oscar is a
baby five years old. A five-year-old
baby!”</p>
<p>“And some day he will commit
murder. My God, will you tell me to be
quiet and not think of that!”</p>
<p>A maid entered the room to announce
dinner.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_033.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">III</h2>
</div>
<div>
<img class="drop-cap" src="images/i_dropcapm.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="drop-cap">MRS. SIMMONS sat through
the meal, white faced and
silent. Her eyes followed her
husband’s nervous movements, but she
did not seem to be listening to his incessant
talk. He was trying to talk away
the disagreeable thing between them,
and apparently she had not the strength
to join him in the effort. She saw him
across the table, strangely apart from
her,—not the lover and husband who
had been woven into her life. He was
a large, tall man, with clear black eyes,
a resounding laugh, and vehement, expressive
movements. Compared with
Dr. Vessinger he had almost a foreign
intensity and emotionality about him,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>
which it occurred to her suddenly had
become more prominent during the
years of their marriage, just as his chest
had broadened, his arms and hands had
become thicker, his whole person had
grown mature.</p>
<p>She recalled him as he was when she
had first seen him, in Colorado Springs,
eight years before, tall, large-boned,
awkward. He had gained from civilization.
The power that she had felt then
in the rough, she had tested in the common
manner of marriage and had never
found it wanting—until now!</p>
<p>Now, from this fear which beset her,
this trouble growing from them both in
the person and soul of the child, she
could feel no help in him. He was
turning away his gaze and chattering,
believing only in gross physical ills,
such as sickness and sudden death, loss
of money and accident,—calamities
which one might name to one’s neighbors,
discuss with one’s doctor, and
bemoan quite aloud. But for this which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>
was unnamable, the fear of destiny, he
had no courage: he refused to see!
She must grope her way to the understanding
of the riddle; she must begin,
alone, the struggle with the future....</p>
<p>The maid poured Simmons a second
glass of whiskey and water, and handed
him a box of cigars. He leaned back
in his chair, stretching forward his feet
in physical comfort, emphasized by the
roar of the summer tempest, which had
finally broken in full fury outside.
Forked streaks of light illumined the
pallid curtains; furious bursts of rain
hit sharply the casement windows, as
with the thongs of whips. Lull and
sullen quiet; then the fury of the tempest—thus
it repeated itself.</p>
<p>Mrs. Simmons left the room, noiselessly
crossing the hall and mounting
the stairs. By the time her husband
finished his cigar she had returned,
with the same stealthy, restless step, the
same questioning eyes.</p>
<p>“He is lying so quietly, Olaf,” she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>
said. “His arm is doubled under his
head, and his little fingers are open.
His lips tremble with his breath. He
is my angel again! I cannot believe
anything else. Why should <i>my</i> child be
that demon?”</p>
<p>Her husband put his arm about her
affectionately and led her into the
drawing-room.</p>
<p>“There! You are coming to look at
it sensibly, Evelyn,” he said encouragingly.</p>
<p>She drew away from his caress.</p>
<p>“No, no! I know what is there. I
had rather see him dead in his bed there
to-night than to see that fire in his eyes
grow and burn and kill him!”</p>
<p>Suddenly she burst into tears.</p>
<p>“To fear it always. To think of it
day and night. To know that it will
come back and seize him some hour
when I am not there to help him! O
God, why did it come to me? What
have I done?”</p>
<p>She wept miserably, but when he tried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>
to comfort her she held herself aloof.
In their misery they were apart, God
dealing with each one in his sorrow
separately.</p>
<p>“Come, Evelyn!” the husband broke
out. “Enough of this! To-morrow
we’ll have in a doctor, the best you can
find in the city. Maybe he’ll just give
him a dose of something and jog his
liver.”</p>
<p>But his wife, who had been standing
beside the window, her forehead pressed
against the cold pane, whirled about and
faced him.</p>
<p>“Did you—ever think—that—you
were old Oscar’s son?”</p>
<p>“What put that into your head? I
told you all I knew—the story old
Oscar told me. The whole camp had
it the same way.”</p>
<p>“That he found you in the frozen
cabin of those Vermonters up among
the Rockies? Your father and mother
had died from cold and hunger, and he
found you just in time?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>“Yes, that was it.”</p>
<p>He hesitated a moment; and then he
added honestly:</p>
<p>“It must have been so; but I have
never found a man who knew anything
about the cabin, or those Vermonters.
Well, it made no difference—so long as
you took me.”</p>
<p>“No, it made no matter to me. I
said so then when you asked me to marry
you.” She waited a moment before
adding, “And I say so now. <i>Nothing</i>
can make it any different!”</p>
<p>“Bless you for that!”</p>
<p>But she quickly parted from his kiss.</p>
<p>“Tell me about old Oscar. He was
rough and bad at times, wasn’t he?”</p>
<p>“Yes, rough,—not bad—a fierce
customer, a regular Berserker, when he
was taken that way,—when he was
drunk or in a bad humor. But I don’t
want to think of that—he was so good
to me, brought me up, gave me my education,
taught me my profession himself,
and put me in the way of having<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>
a happy life. It isn’t right to remember
his bad side.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean? You never
told me he was bad. I thought you
meant he was rough and uneducated—that
he made his way without a cent
from the time he landed in New York.
What else do you mean? Was he a
bad man? Was he wicked?”</p>
<p>The man walked to and fro, disturbed
and puzzled. He had stumbled on the
worst idea in the world for his wife to
feed her imagination upon, and yet he
knew that she was aroused—he could
not put her off with excuses. He had
never told her of his old barbarian benefactor’s
darker side, partly because he
did not like to mention rude vices to
her and partly because it seemed disloyal
to his kindest friend. And he
was not skilful in handling the truth.
What he had to say, he was forced to
blurt out plainly.</p>
<p>“Why, it wasn’t drawing-room life in
a Colorado camp in those days, anyway,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>
and the older crowd were a pretty rough
lot, all of them. Oscar Svenson was
better than most, generally. But he
would have his times of being drunk
and disorderly, and he was such a big
fellow and so strong that when he got
violent the camp generally knew it.
I can remember once when I was a
little fellow sitting in the corner of
the saloon when he had one of his
fits. He was a giant, a head taller
than I am, with a great mane of hair
all over his head, growing down the
nape of his neck in a thick mat under
his shirt.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Simmons started, and twisted
her hands nervously. But she controlled
herself.</p>
<p>“Go on!”</p>
<p>“When he was drunk, he didn’t shoot—that
wasn’t his way. He would use
his knife, or take up a man in his arms
and crush him like a bear with his two
hands. That day—but, pshaw! It’s
all nonsense, my sitting here and telling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>
you fool stories to make you creepy.
The rain has stopped. I’ll tell Tom to
harness up, and we’ll drive over to the
Country Club to see if they’ve got the
election returns yet. Come, dear! Try
to be strong and patient.”</p>
<p>“No! I shall not go out to-night
one single step. I can’t get that cry
out of my head, and I should hear it
worse if I were away from the house.
Tell me about that terrible old man.
Did he kill a man before your eyes?”</p>
<p>“I hate to have you think of him so.
He gave me everything, even <i>you</i>.”</p>
<p>She smiled forlornly.</p>
<p>“He was different in nature from us
tame folk in the States. He came from
a people that drink deep and have fiery
passions,—big-boned, strong-hearted
people, as gentle as women and as savage
as bulls. I’ve seen him—”</p>
<p>“What makes you stop so short,
when you are just ready to tell something?
I want to hear the worst thing
you remember.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>He stammered and hunted for an
excuse.</p>
<p>“Come, come. It’s all rot. They
tell stories about men. Such a fellow
as old Oscar Svenson you must make
allowances for, take the good with the
bad. There were plenty of better men
than he at his worst, but few as good as
he at his best. You can’t line such
men up with meeting-house folk. I’ll
tell you how he saved the Irish family
off Keepsake trail, all alone. But it is
stifling here. Come out to the terrace,
now the rain has stopped.”</p>
<p>There they sat together on a bench
in the corner of the terrace, while he
told the story of old Oscar’s magnificent
courage and will. The big Norwegian
had ploughed his way ten
miles up the mountains in a blinding
snowstorm to carry food to a woman
and some children. The woman’s
husband was too cowardly to leave
the camp. And when old Oscar had
reached the cabin, finding one child<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>
sick, he had gone back to the camp for
medicine.</p>
<p>As Simmons told the story, the stars
came out in the soft summer heavens;
the damp odor of cut grass filled the
air. The parched earth, having drunk,
breathed forth. But the woman’s tense
gaze never softened. When he had finished,
she said:</p>
<p>“Now you must tell me the worst
thing he ever did. I will know it!”</p>
<p>“They say he threw a man over a
precipice once, and nearly broke his
back. The fellow had been stealing
water, when there wasn’t enough to
go around, and he had had his share.
He lied about it, too. Old Oscar
just chucked him off the trail like a
rat. He would call that justice. I
don’t know. That was before I knew
him.”</p>
<p>She shivered, and held her husband’s
hand more tightly.</p>
<p>“Go on!”</p>
<p>“There were other stories of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>
same thing; well, we’d call it murder
now, maybe!”</p>
<p>And she forced him to tell much—the
dark deeds of this old Berserker in
his mad rages,—swift, brutal love,
murder—all that the furies of blood
drive a man to do. Bit by bit, she had
them all,—stories whispered here and
there on the slopes of mountains, in far-off
mining camps and towns, where the
Norseman had spent his life; things
remembered out of that rough childhood
for which she had pitied her husband,
for which she had loved him the more,
with a woman’s desire to make the bitter
sweet. As the soft summer night got
on, she heard the story of that killing,
the sole one which he had seen with his
own eyes. He had locked it tight
within his breast all the years since:
the quarrel with a friend about some
insignificant trifle, the burst of anger,
the sudden blow, and then, while the
boy tried to part the men, a strange
look of wonder on the fierce face from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>
which the red passion was paling.
And the next morning forgetfulness
of it all!</p>
<p>“But it troubled him always like a
bad dream—he could never remember
exactly what he had done. He never
thought <i>I</i> knew.”</p>
<p>She rose from the bench and walked
away from him to the end of the
terrace.</p>
<p>“And, my Evelyn,” he pleaded, “you
loved me first because <i>he</i> had been all I
had had. You asked nothing of me—you
gave me all your love gladly.”</p>
<p>He had an uneasy feeling that something
strange and impalpable was pushing
its way between them.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she murmured. “It was—a
long time ago.”</p>
<p>“Seven years. Is that a long time?”</p>
<p>“Yes. I was a girl then. It is always
a long time to when one was a
girl.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t seem to me a long time!”</p>
<p>“Well, it’s a great while since, since<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>
<i>this</i> came up—like a mountain. The
past is on the other side.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know what you mean. No
kind of trouble should divide man and
wife!”</p>
<p>For a few moments there was silence;
then she cried, in the accent of reproach,
of accusation:</p>
<p>“Can’t you see? You were <i>his</i> child!”</p>
<p>“Old Oscar’s?... Sometimes I have
thought it might be so. I am dark like
him. But we can never know it now.”</p>
<p>“<i>I</i> know it! The devil in that bad
old man has slept in you and is waking
in little Oscar,—my child, <i>my</i> child!
That is what you have brought me for
my love. I took you because I loved
you, because I was mad to have you. I
wanted you just for myself, just to give
me joy. Now! Now!... I can sit
and watch the child who is me fight
with that devil. Oh! there is nothing
but pain!”</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_047.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">IV</h2>
</div>
<div>
<img class="drop-cap" src="images/i_dropcapm.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="drop-cap">MOODS of the night pass with
their tragic glooms, and the
first lines of sorrow fade into
dull distaste and distant apprehension.
Husband and wife met day by day, and
slowly the black cloud between them
became imperceptibly mist: the man
dared raise his eyes to that pitiable face,
and the silent wife began to speak.
Doctors had come and applied their
poultices against panic,—the vast circle
of probabilities, the excellences of
regimen.</p>
<p>Then the engineer, in the fulfilment
of his business engagements, had gone
away for six weeks, which the mother
and child had spent at the seacoast for
a change of air. Early in September<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>
they were living once more in the pleasant
country house outside the great
city, and husband and wife were talking
almost confidently of what they should
do in this matter and that, speaking with
more and more certainty as the days
slipped past. Something grave in the
woman’s voice, a touch of doubt in the
glance between them—those signs alone
remained, and the memory.</p>
<p>Another trip to the mines was to be
made; the date of departure Simmons
put off, in order that he might take his
wife to the large dance at the Bellflowers’.
On this day he returned from the city
by an early afternoon train. When the
coachman drew up before the house, no
one could be seen about the place.
Simmons called out heartily:</p>
<p>“I say, where are you? Is any one
about? Evelyn!”</p>
<p>Windows and doors were open; the
summer wind blew through the house.
There was a vacancy about it all which
impressed the man.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>“There was somethin’ or other goin’
on when I hitched up,” the coachman
ventured to remark. “There were a lot
of hollerin’ and screamin’, sir; somethin’
up with the children.”</p>
<p>He had the air of being able to tell
more if necessary. Mr. Simmons jumped
to the ground and entered the house.
A servant, who finally appeared in answer
to his repeated calls, told him that
she had seen Mrs. Simmons crossing the
meadow below the lawn, in the direction
of the little river at the bottom of the
grounds. She had little Oscar with her,
so said the maid, and she seemed to be
hurrying.</p>
<p>He hastened to the little boat-house
on the river. Hot summer afternoons it
was a common thing for his wife to row
upon the river, yet every moment he
quickened his steps until he was on the
run. From the meadow wall he could
see his boat tied to a stake in the stream,
riding tranquilly. Evelyn was not on
the river. He followed the foot-path,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>
hesitatingly, beside the sluggish stream,
calling in a voice which he tried to make
quite natural:</p>
<p>“Evelyn! Oscar! Evelyn—where
are you?”</p>
<p>There was a yard or two of sandy
beach beside the boat-house, and there
he found them. His wife was kneeling
down on the sand, her face to the river,
engaged in hurriedly undressing the
child. She had him almost stripped of
his clothes, and she was talking to him,
while he listened with the attention, the
thoughtfulness, of a man. Suddenly
spying his father, he laughed and broke
from his mother’s arms.</p>
<p>“There’s Dad!” he cried. “Are you
going away, too, with mamma and me?
She’s going to take me far out into the
river, away and away, and we are never
coming back any more, never going to
play any more up there on the lawn!”</p>
<p>His voice rose in the childish treble
of wonder, and he added, after a moment:</p>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_050.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<p class="caption">“<span class="smcap">His wife was ... hurriedly undressing<br />
the child.</span>”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>“Now you come, too, Dad.”</p>
<p>“Evelyn! What does this mean?”</p>
<p>She had risen hastily when little
Oscar called out to his father. Her
eyes were red with tears, and her hands
shook with nervousness.</p>
<p>“I thought it would be all done, all
over, before you came,” she murmured.
“But he would not come with me unless
I took off his clothes. I tried to take
him in my arms, but he broke away.”</p>
<p>The man shuddered as he gradually
comprehended what it meant. Little
Oscar ran back to his mother and put
his face close to hers.</p>
<p>“Mamma is sick,” he said gently.
“You must take her home and put her
to bed and have Dora sing to her.”</p>
<p>His lithe little body danced up and
down. The hot wind waved his black
curls around his neck. His mother
pushed him away.</p>
<p>“Take him,” she groaned. “It kills
me to look at him.”</p>
<p>Simmons gathered up the child’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>
clothes and began to put them on the
dancing figure.</p>
<p>“What has crazed you?” he demanded
roughly of his wife.</p>
<p>“I will tell you—when he is gone,”
she answered wearily, leaning her head
against the shingled wall of the boat-house.</p>
<p>Little Oscar ran to and fro in his
drawers, wet the tips of his feet, and
threw sand into the water, while his
father was trying to dress him. Finally
the mother took the child, put on his
shirt, and told him to run home. He
dashed into the thicket of alders beside
the river with a shout. Soon they heard
his voice in the meadow, ringing with
the joy of living, the animal utterance
of life.</p>
<p>“It was this afternoon,” the mother
explained. “The Porters’ children and
the Boyces’ boy were playing on the
terrace. Dora was away. I was reading
in my bedroom—I had told Dora
I would look after the children. I must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>
have dropped asleep with the heat—perhaps
a minute, perhaps longer. Suddenly,
I <i>felt</i> something fearful. I seemed
to hear a choking, a gurgling. When I
jumped up, awake, everything was still,
quiet,—too quiet, I thought; and I ran
to the window over the terrace.”</p>
<p>She covered her face with her hands
to shut out the sight of it, and the rest
came brokenly through her smothered
lips:</p>
<p>“Oscar was there—he and little Ned
Boyce. Ned was lying—down on the
brick floor—and Oscar had his hands
about his throat choking him. I must
have screamed. Oscar jumped up, and
looked around. He said—he said just
like himself,—‘What is it, mamma?’”</p>
<p>She stopped again and swallowed her
tears.</p>
<p>“When I got down there, Ned was
white and still. I thought he was dead.
It was a long, long time before he got
his breath, before he was himself. If, if
I hadn’t wakened just then—”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>Above them in the mottled sunshine
on the lawn they could see little Oscar
running, then stopping and listening,
like some sprite escaped from the river
alders. The man watched him springing
over the turf, his little shirt fluttering
in the breeze, and gradually his
head sank. Then he straightened himself,
and taking his wife’s hand led
her back along the river path into the
meadow.</p>
<p>“Ned Boyce is a bad-tempered little
fellow: he irritated and exasperated
Oscar until with the heat and all that
he clutched him. We must think so at
any rate. I’ll lick it out of him, if I
catch him at it!” He ended with this
feeble, masculine threat, this desire to
take his exasperation out on somebody
else—to be paid for his distress of
mind. “But it frightens me to think of
your coming here and thinking of doing
such a thing!”</p>
<p>He turned his mood of reproach
directly to her.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>“If you had seen Ned lying there so
white—it was whole minutes before he
opened his eyes,”—she protested; and
then it seemed to come over her in a
wave that in her struggle with this evil
she was alone,—her husband did not
really understand what it meant. To
him it was trouble, like difficulty with
servants,—something which his buoyant
nature refused to take altogether seriously.
For him there was always a
way out of a situation: to her there was
no avenue out in this situation. She
took her hand from his arm and stepped
forth steadily by herself.</p>
<p>She had done him wrong! In his
slower, less vivid mind, the tragedy
was printing itself. He no longer could
talk comfort. Something heavy and
hard settled down on his spirit: he saw
himself and this tender woman caught
in a rocky bed of circumstance. In the
gloom of his mind he could see no light,
and he groaned.</p>
<p>Thus, together they mounted the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>
slope of the lawn to the pleasant cottage,
side by side and yet withdrawn from
one another. As they reached the
terrace little Oscar darted out, like a
fleet arrow, from the big syringa where
he had lain hidden. His voice rippled
with joy:</p>
<p>“You’re so slow, you two! Do you
see what I got? A piece of Mary’s
Sunday cake. And <i>that’s</i> what’s left.
I’ll give you that, mamma, if you’ll be
good.”</p>
<p>“Take him away!” his mother exclaimed
fretfully. “I can’t look at him
yet. I have had enough for one day.”</p>
<p>She entered the house and locked herself
in her room. Later, when her
husband knocked, she opened the door;
she had been sitting before her dressing-table,
looking vacantly into the mirror.</p>
<p>“I don’t suppose you want to go over
there to their party?” he ventured
timidly. “I’ll send Tom over with a
note.”</p>
<p>“Why would I not go? Why should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>
I stay at home? Is this the sort of
place a woman would want to stay in all
the time, do you think? Heavens! if
anything could make me forget for one
quarter of an hour <i>this</i> idea,—anything,
I would go—and sin for it too! Do
you understand?”</p>
<p>The man’s face winced for the pain
she had to bear. Again she burst out,
looking into the mirror, her hair fallen
about her strong young breast and
shoulders:</p>
<p>“You brought this to me, you! Why
didn’t something tell me of all that was
hidden away in you, all that some day
would come out from you and be mine?
You did not let me know. Now I cannot
get away from it! O my God!
Why do you make me live? What
right have you to make me live and
endure?”</p>
<p>He did not resent her bitter reproaches.
It was the instinctive recoil
of her young body from terrible suffering,
the first twitch of the flesh from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>
knife. There were no tears left in the
eyes now; nothing shone there but passion
and resentment.</p>
<p>“Stay at home? It’s the night of all
others I’d go somewhere—get something.
No! I won’t give in. I’ll get away
from it, forget it, and be happy again.
I will—see me do it.... They dine at
half-past eight. Have the carriage at
eight. I shall be ready.”</p>
<p>He walked to and fro in the dressing-room,
wishing to say something that
could soften her mood. At last he put
his hand gently on her beautiful bare
shoulders and lowered his face to hers.</p>
<p>“We must take this together, love,”
he whispered simply.</p>
<p>“Don’t speak of it!” she cried, drawing
herself from his touch. “Don’t
touch me. I shall go mad, mad! You
will have two instead of one, then.”</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_059.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">V</h2>
</div>
<div>
<img class="drop-cap" src="images/i_dropcapy.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="drop-cap2">“YOUR husband seems to be
having a good time,” Dr.
Vessinger observed, twirling
his champagne glass between his strong
bony fingers. “Does he often enjoy—these
good spirits—this—enthusiasm?”</p>
<p>Below them in the main portion of
the large dining-room of Mrs. Bellflower’s
house, the guests were supping
at small tables. Dr. Vessinger had
captured one of the few tables in the
breakfast room at one side. Simmons
was seated next to Mrs. Bellflower. His
good-natured, bearded face was thrown
back, and his eyes shone with champagne.
His wife looked at him with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>
surprise; she had not noticed him before.
He was talking a great deal, and
repeating what he said to right and
left, in a loud voice, with much laughter.
She could not hear what he was saying,
but she divined that it was silly.</p>
<p>“No! I never saw him so—excited,
before,” she answered her companion.
“He doesn’t usually drink champagne.”</p>
<p>“He seems to like it rather well,” the
doctor replied, watching him drain a
fresh glass. “It’s a good thing to have
such good spirits, isn’t it?” He turned
his eyes to hers, and raised his glass.
“To your beautiful self, Evelyn!”</p>
<p>She could feel the warmth of her
blood as it rushed over her face and
neck, at his deliberate words.</p>
<p>“Why do you call me that?” she
asked brusquely.</p>
<p>“You may remember that I called
you that once before,” he replied, unperturbed;
“and then you had no objection
to my familiarity.”</p>
<p>They were both silent, while in their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>
minds rose that “once before”: the
roses blooming in the Sicilian garden,
husbanded by bees; the young American
doctor sent south to recover from
a sickness; the romance of their hearts
beating in unison with the romance of
the place.</p>
<p>Gradually her eyes fell from the
doctor’s face. For, later, she had forgotten
him, measured him by another
and found him less than she desired.
She had sent him away, the young
American doctor of the Sicilian garden,
and had never thought to ask herself
before, whether she could regret it.
Now she raised her eyes to his face and
wondered whether she were regretting it.</p>
<p>He was handsome and mundane. In
those eight years he had pushed himself
from obscurity to a point of worldly
ease. Perhaps she had done that for
him by sending him away! To her,
now, though married, he was more interesting
than ever before. What she had
done to him then he had surmounted;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>
and now, somehow, it seemed the gods
had put the cards into his hands.</p>
<p>Suddenly, while she was wondering,
he leaned nearer to her and said:</p>
<p>“You are miserable. I can tell it
from the lines in your forehead. And
your eyes are hot with fever.”</p>
<p>He spoke impersonally; it was like
the soothing hand of the physician
to his patient. Simmons was laughing
still more hilariously, and his neighbor,
the Magnificent Wreck, was laughing
with him; those near them were shouting
and clapping their hands; they were
urging him to do something. To his
wife it all seemed silly.</p>
<p>“Does <i>that</i> worry you?” continued
Vessinger, following her eyes.</p>
<p>She looked at her husband again with
a sudden sense of detachment from him.
He was foolish, like a child, and she
suspected why he was foolish and drank
too much: he wished not to think. She
despised his male way of trying to escape
from himself. His was the man’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>
simple, coarse instinct—to drink, to
laugh, to forget!</p>
<p>Suddenly he was just a man in black
and white, like all the others who had
come to her that evening and said words
and smiled and danced and gone away.
He was just a man, like one-half creation.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she replied steadily to the doctor.
“I am miserable. Does it make
you happy to know that?”</p>
<p>She did not comprehend what inferences
he might draw from the juxtaposition
of acts and words.</p>
<p>“In a way, it does,” he answered
calmly. “But I shouldn’t let <i>that</i>
bother you. Our hostess, good woman,
loves a laughing guest, and your husband
is colossal. The best of men forget
themselves, you know, and on the
morrow they are ashamed. A good
wife forgives—that is her <i>métier</i>.”</p>
<p>The racket below increased until
every one stopped his eating or his talk
to find out what made the disturbance.
Simmons was rising somewhat unsteadily<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>
to his feet. His tie had come undone.
His large brown eyes, usually twinkling
with gentle kindliness, flashed with the
passion of the moment.</p>
<p>“Bravo! Simmons! Bravo! A
song!” rose from some of the guests.
“Sing your old song, Sim!” one called
out. The guests jostled into the dining-room,
deserting the terrace, where they
had been supping and flirting. There
were some among the men who had
been at the School of Mines and knew
his college fame.</p>
<p>“So your husband sings?” Dr. Vessinger
asked.</p>
<p>“We will hear,” his wife replied
tranquilly. “Listen!”</p>
<p>The drinking song, which was not
meant for dinner-parties where any
proprieties were observed, rolled out,
at first uncertainly and then with
greater force. At the end of the
stanza, young men’s voices from all
over the house shouted out the chorus.
One or two of the older men shook<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>
their heads, and while laughing said:
“No, no. That’s too bad! Some one
should stop him.”</p>
<p>“It seems to take,” Dr. Vessinger
murmured to Mrs. Simmons. “He has
chosen that moment of inspiration when
we are all drunk enough to think it a
great song and not too drunk to join
the chorus. Bravo! More, more!”
he called with those who were applauding.</p>
<p>It was, apparently, a tremendous success.
Men were patting Simmons on
the back, and a servant was filling his
glass with champagne. The calls for
another stanza grew more clamorous.</p>
<p>His wife looked at him stonily. She
did not make much of his unaccustomed
drinking, of the spectacle he was offering
of himself to their public. She was
wondering at his male mind. How
could <i>he</i> find it in him—just now with
the truth they both knew but two hours
cold in his memory—how could he
find the heart to drink and sing? She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>
had said to him defiantly that she would
get joy in spite of all. But was there
anything in life which could make her
drink and sing and forget? Her heart
was shut to pleasure, and she looked
at him coldly, as one might look at a
bad actor who is much applauded.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p>He, poor man! had sat down to the
feast with the twin devils of despair and
remorse by his side. The others around
him laughed and were merry. Why
should <i>his</i> food taste bitter when to
them it seemed sweet? Why should his
be the wife and his the child? He felt
himself to be a common man, and wished
to have their taste for the feast, their
content with common life. So he began
to drink because it was pleasant
to drink. The devils faded as the spirit
of champagne entered him. At last he
was comfortable, and then happy. The
woman by his side, the Magnificent
Wreck, became beautiful, witty, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>
alluring. The woman at his left smiled
with a pretty doll’s smile, showing her
nice teeth, white like porcelain. He
was drunk; he knew it, and he was
happy!</p>
<p>So he wanted to sing, to make the
room ring with his new joy. There
seemed to open a concealed door in his
mind, and out tramped words and
sounds, expressing beautiful, happy
feelings; he was singing....</p>
<p>“On the table! On the table!” they
shouted to him. “Up, up!”</p>
<p>The older men were trying to calm
the racket to a more decorous note.
But already they had cleared the dishes
and glass from his end of the table, and
the Magnificent Wreck, with glistening
eyes, was applauding, urging him on. He
hopped on his chair, like a boy, as he
had done years ago at college dinners.
He placed one foot on the table to
steady himself, raised the long-stemmed
wine-glass above his head, and, less certainly,
out rolled the second stanza.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>It was good to be drunk, if this were
being drunk! Again, with all the volume
of the first time, sprang the notes
of the chorus.</p>
<p>Simmons raised his long-stemmed
glass and waved it slowly in a circle
above his head. They clapped and
stamped and sang over again the
chorus.</p>
<p>“Why not leave? Why inflict this
on yourself?” the doctor asked his
companion.</p>
<p>“<i>That</i> does not make me miserable,”
she answered coldly, recognizing how he
had mistaken her. “It is foolish, of
course, to drink too much. He will be
sorry to-morrow.”</p>
<p>“What is it then that burns your eyes,
and gives you that look of pain?”</p>
<p>“I will <i>never</i> tell you!”</p>
<p>“Perhaps I can guess,” he answered
at random.</p>
<p>Her eyes lost their defiance. Perhaps
this subtle doctor, who could
read the miseries of life, had seen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>
and comprehended all, that afternoon
when he had come to call. The shame
that she vowed to herself he should know
last of all, he knew, perchance, <i>best</i> of
all.</p>
<p>“Don’t reject my sympathy,” he
added. “I pity you.”</p>
<p>His voice had softened from the tone
of irony. His gentleness broke down
her pride. There was something humanly
warm and kindly in his sympathy.
It seemed to reach farther than
her husband’s. A mist gathered in her
eyes, and she lowered her head that he
might not see the possible tears and the
quivering lips....</p>
<p>Would her fate have been thus cruel,
if, in the years gone by, in the Sicilian
garden, she had preferred this man,—if
this man, who loved her, had been
bound with her? Would she have
known the clutch of terror and felt the
wound from the arms of her son? The
child who was hers and another’s—might
he not have been wholly hers?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>She thought bitterly how the male
heart had its escape from misery,—such
an easy, common one! She wanted <i>her</i>
escape. She could not drink and shout;
she could fly, leave the terror behind
her, and seek a new self in a new
world.</p>
<p>“To one that loves you as I do, your
misery is his misery, and your despair
is his.”</p>
<p>She felt that she should resent
his words, but her heart welcomed
them.</p>
<p>There was a cry in the room below
them, then a crash, and the song came
to an inglorious end. Simmons had
circled the swaying yellow ball of sparkling
wine in too ample an arc. The
champagne dashed upon the laughing,
upturned face of their hostess; the glass
shattered on the floor. A kindly hand
saved Simmons from falling.</p>
<p>Dr. Vessinger’s sharp eyes detected
the glance of contempt in the wife’s
face.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>“I think a breath of night air would
suit us both better than this hubbub,”
he suggested, opening the casement
window behind him. “Will you take
my arm, Evelyn?”</p>
<p>She hesitated a moment, a sense of
duty to be done detaining her. Then,
with another look at her husband, at
the noisy room of flushed people, repugnance
mounted too high; she placed
her hand on the doctor’s arm, and
stepped down to the terrace beneath
the casement. Beyond lay the scented
gardens, the breadth of cool heavens,
the velvet darkness outside the range of
light from the cottage windows, pointed
in places by tall poplars.</p>
<p>“Let us get beyond the sound of their
noise,” the doctor murmured, drawing
her more closely to him. A fresh burst
of laughter, doubtless caused by some
new antic of her husband, sped her steps
away from the band of light about the
house. She shivered with distaste of it.
Not that! Rather to flee away in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>
cool, dark night, away forever from the
life which she had known and which
was a failure,—to find escape from the
threatening horror which was hers and
his!</p>
<p>Vessinger drew her wrap more closely
about her, with an air of domination,
and she followed submissively through
the deserted alleys of the dark garden,
listening to his tense words, in a lethargy
of spirit....</p>
<p>There was an eruption from the
brilliant house. Men’s voices reached
the pair in the garden. The voices
protested, coaxed; for a time they faded
away to the other side of the house.
Then they returned, and the woman in
the garden heard her husband speaking
thickly and loudly.</p>
<p>“That’s all right, boys. But I must
find my wife, first. Dixey says he
saw her go out here, when I was
singing.”</p>
<p>She started involuntarily, but the
doctor restrained her.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>“They will take him away,” he whispered,
“in a minute.”</p>
<p>Evidently that was what his companions
were endeavoring to do, but
Simmons with drunken obstinacy persisted
in his point.</p>
<p>“Yes,” he said, in his loud, confident
voice, “I’ll go with you all right, just
as soon as I find my wife. Never left
my wife. It wouldn’t be right, you
know!”</p>
<p>She slipped her arm from her companion,
and walked rapidly toward the
terrace, Vessinger following her.</p>
<p>“I am here, Olaf,” she said, going up
to the knot of men. “Are you looking
for me?”</p>
<p>His companions separated awkwardly,—all
but one, who held Simmons’s swaying
figure.</p>
<p>“That you, Evelyn? Wanted to tell
you that I am going in town with these
fellows. Let me get the carriage for
you. Don’t mind going home alone, do
you, Evelyn?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>“I will take Mrs. Simmons to her
carriage,” Vessinger offered, stepping
forward.</p>
<p>“Excuse me!” Simmons replied,
waving him back. “Will you take my
arm, Evelyn?”</p>
<p>Together in some fashion, they
reached the <i>porte-cochère</i>, and there
again Vessinger tried to put Mrs. Simmons
in the carriage, to whisper a word
privately to her.</p>
<p>“Shan’t I drive back with Mrs. Simmons?”
he asked. Simmons wavered
unsteadily, looking at Vessinger all the
time. Then he said very distinctly:</p>
<p>“No thank you, Vessinger. We can
trust the coachman,—good man, the
coachman.”</p>
<p>He handed his wife to the carriage.</p>
<p>“Won’t you come, Olaf?” she asked.
“I think you had better come with me.”</p>
<p>Her tone was cold and hard. The
man drew himself up quickly.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Evelyn. I had rather
not. Good-night.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>He closed the carriage door, and
turned to the men, who had been awkwardly
watching the performance from
a distance.</p>
<p>“Drive on, Tom. Ready now, boys.”</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_076.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">VI</h2>
</div>
<div>
<img class="drop-cap" src="images/i_dropcapt2.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="drop-cap">THE morrow was close and sultry.
The sun pursued its
course through the heavens,
round and red like a ball of heated
metal. Careful housewives in suburban
cottages scrupulously drew in the shutters,
pulled the shades, and closed the
windows against the fierce heat. Thus
they produced the musty coolness of the
tomb, in which they existed languidly
until late afternoon. Then easterly windows
were opened, admitting fresh air.</p>
<p>On the eastern piazza of the Simmons
house, as the sun sank, there appeared
two people. Mrs. Simmons moved here
and there restlessly, her face pale with
the heat of the day, dark circles beneath
her blue eyes. She looped up the wilted
tendrils of the climbing vine, patting the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>
belated blossoms with her soft, plump
hands. Behind her in the shade of the
long house Dr. Vessinger lounged on a
chair, smoking a cigarette.</p>
<p>“Evelyn!”</p>
<p>The doctor’s low voice just reached
to her. She started and turned her
face to him. He was a slight man,
with an active, well-proportioned body.
How much he had done for himself since
those far-off days when she had first
known him! He was Some One now;
she had a vague movement of pride that
she had held his fancy all these years.</p>
<p>“You knew I should be out to-day?”
he questioned, following her with his
intelligent eyes.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she answered dully. “I suppose
I did. It was the proper thing to
do,” she added bitterly. “No! I
don’t mean that! I know you are kind—only
I suffer so!”</p>
<p>“Has your husband turned up yet?”</p>
<p>“No, but he telephoned that he should
be back for dinner, late, quite late.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>“Oh! Pat Borden took care of him.
He was well looked after. You needn’t
worry.”</p>
<p>“Why should I, about him?” she
asked inquiringly, as if she failed to
see any significance in what he said.
“He telephoned; he is well; he will be
here this evening. I do not think about
him especially.”</p>
<p>“I hope you have thought about—”</p>
<p>“No, no, please don’t say those foolish
things. They don’t sound well the day
after.”</p>
<p>He threw away his cigarette and
joined her.</p>
<p>“You men are all alike!” she continued
musingly. “You are all at the
bottom brutal; you don’t care for anything
but—what it means to <i>you</i>. I
wonder if there was ever a man born
who could care for a woman more than
for himself?”</p>
<p>“If there were, the woman would tire
of him in a week.”</p>
<p>“Mamma! You here?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>Oscar came skipping out of the house,
making one long leap from the drawing-room
window to the railing of the veranda.
Then he ran toward his mother,
arms stretched out to hug her.</p>
<p>“Nice little fellow,” Dr. Vessinger
remarked propitiatingly. “Won’t you
come here, little man?”</p>
<p>“No, no!” the mother objected hastily.
“Run away, Oscar. Ask Dora
to take you to the Laurels. It will be
shady and cool there.”</p>
<p>The child looked steadily and curiously
at the doctor.</p>
<p>“Who is that gentleman, mamma?”
he demanded.</p>
<p>“Ha, ha, well said!” the doctor
laughed. “He wants to know who your
friends are, madam. He will manage
<i>you</i> one of these days. Come here, sir!”</p>
<p>Instead of running forward at the
doctor’s invitation, the child backed
steadily into his mother’s dress, eying
the stranger with dislike. Mrs. Simmons
glanced up at the doctor, surprised<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>
and annoyed at his conduct. Did
he not understand? How could he
anger the child, perhaps provoke one
of his frightful paroxysms? It was
disagreeable in him to dwell thus on her
misery, to play with the child.</p>
<p>“Go away, Oscar,” she said, leading
him away from the terrace.</p>
<p>At the same moment Dr. Vessinger
walked toward the mother and child.
Oscar stood still, his limbs stiffening, his
under lip trembling. Tears began to
gather in the mother’s eyes. She was
frightened, and she hated the imperious
man.</p>
<p>“Come, dear,” she urged. “Come
with mamma. Be good and do as I
want you to.”</p>
<p>She had leaned down to him, and he
threw one arm about her neck and drew
her close to him, looking defiantly at the
doctor.</p>
<p>“Is he the man who makes you cry,
mamma?” he asked. “Send him away.
I will drive him away!”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>As the mother watched him, standing
there with his head thrown back, the
black curls falling on his brown neck,
he recalled to her vividly his father.
She had seen the man in something like
the attitude of the child. Commanding,
erect, noble, defiant,—so she had seen
him and worshipped him during the
months of their ardent first love. The
little mite was like her lover born
again.</p>
<p>“Fiery little devil, isn’t he?” the
doctor remarked, hesitating and disconcerted.
“Looks as if he would like to
smash me, stick a knife into me, or something.
Handsome, though!”</p>
<p>“I think you had better sit down,”
Mrs. Simmons answered coldly. As
the man stood irresolute, she added
vehemently:</p>
<p>“Why do you tease the child? Go
back!”</p>
<p>The doctor turned back to his chair
sulkily. The mother kissed the boy’s
face, gently loosening the grasp of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>
strong little arm about her neck.
“Come, Oscar,” she whispered. “We
will go together!”</p>
<p>She led him from the terrace, he looking
backward constantly and scowling
at the unacceptable guest.</p>
<p>“Send him away, mamma,” he said.
“I don’t like him.”</p>
<p>“Ssh, ssh,” his mother murmured reprovingly,
seeking to soften his barbarian
instincts.</p>
<p>She was gone for what seemed to the
doctor an interminable time, and when
she returned there was something cold
and severe in her pale face. Before she
seated herself, she began to say what
she had in mind:</p>
<p>“Dr. Vessinger, there is something I
must say to you, all at once, now, and then
you must go. You have made love to me,—yesterday
evening,—and I listened.
I was in great agony of mind, and so
foolishly absorbed in my pain that I
thought you—you understood what my
trouble was. I wanted to escape from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>
it—at any price. I was wild and bad.
Now, well, you don’t understand; and I
know, myself, I could not get any joy or
give any, without him, little Oscar.”</p>
<p>“I don’t understand,” Dr. Vessinger
exclaimed, thoroughly mystified.</p>
<p>“No, you don’t understand,” she
admitted with cool irony. “Perhaps it
is not necessary that you should. You
doubtless see that I could not give you
the pleasure you look for.”</p>
<p>“I do not admit that for one moment,”
he protested, rising.</p>
<p>She held out her hand.</p>
<p>“I was right—eight years ago; that
is all, my friend.”</p>
<p>He took her hand and held it, trying
to come nearer, to melt the icy mood of
the woman. She smiled pleasantly at
him, unmoved, confident, and in another
world of feeling than his.</p>
<p>“You are not well,” he stammered,
“not yourself!”</p>
<p>“Who can tell what <i>is</i> yourself? Last
night I wanted the freedom of my youth.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>
Now I am ready to take the other thing,
which makes us old,—pain. Good-by.”</p>
<p>He still held her hand, and she smiled
at him, aloof. Just then a man’s voice
sounded from inside the house, and
Simmons poked his head out of the
drawing-room window.</p>
<p>“Oh! You here, Evelyn?”</p>
<p>Perceiving Vessinger, he added
gruffly:</p>
<p>“Where is Jane or some one? I must
be off to-night, and I want them to pack
my bag and give me some dinner!”</p>
<p>“How are you, Simmons?” the doctor
called out in his cool manner. “Come
out here and let’s have a look at you!”</p>
<p>“I’m all right, Vessinger,” Simmons
answered sulkily, stepping through the
window.</p>
<p>“That was a great performance you
gave us last night, Simmons, a triumph!
I never heard anything better. Your
waving that glass over the Bellflower’s
crown of false hair was magnificent!”</p>
<p>Simmons glowered at the man and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>
looked furtively at his wife. She seemed
to be gazing at something at the other
end of the lawn.</p>
<p>“Oh!” Simmons muttered. “Damn
nonsense!”</p>
<p>His handsome face looked thin and
pale, as if he had been paying well for
his moments of forgetfulness.</p>
<p>“Yes,” continued the doctor, with an
insistence which seemed to Mrs. Simmons
to be petty malice. “You were
the success of the evening. Mrs. Bellflower
ought to thank you for your
parlor tricks.”</p>
<p>“Oh! damn,” commented the harassed
man, looking miserably toward
his wife.</p>
<p>She turned suddenly to the two men.</p>
<p>“We have had enough of last night,
haven’t we?”</p>
<p>“So you’re off again?” the doctor
persisted, seeking a new topic.</p>
<p>“Yes, yes, long trip. God knows
when I shall get back.” This last he
muttered to himself. Vessinger did not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>
hear it, but Mrs. Simmons looked quickly
at her husband. He hung his head.</p>
<p>“You—you are going away?” she
asked in a low voice, forgetting the
other man’s presence. “To leave me?
Going to-night?”</p>
<p>“Why, those Jews telegraphed me—last
night—got it this morning—must
be in Chicago to meet them.”</p>
<p>He turned to enter the house. Mrs.
Simmons followed him without regarding
Vessinger.</p>
<p>“I am off,” the doctor said to her.
“Good-by.”</p>
<p>But no one heeded him.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_087.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">VII</h2>
</div>
<div>
<img class="drop-cap" src="images/i_dropcapo.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="drop-cap2">“OLAF!”</p>
<p>There was a note of dread
in her voice, which arrested
the man’s footsteps.</p>
<p>“What?” he asked curtly.</p>
<p>“You will not leave me, <i>now</i>! You
are not going away?”</p>
<p>“You can’t want me around much,
after last night,” he answered hesitatingly.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” she asked
quickly, a flush coming to her face.</p>
<p>“There’s no use of going over it, is
there? I began to drink, of course, because
I was so damned blue about the
boy and you. It seemed as if everything
was helplessly mixed up, and there was
no way of straightening it out. After<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>
all the fight I made to be something,
and to win you, and to give you a good
place in the world,—all that was suddenly
smashed. I couldn’t stand sitting
there and thinking of nothing but that.
And when I looked about at those folks,
and saw how gay and lively and light-hearted
they were, I said to myself:
‘Why haven’t I a right to a good time,
too? What’s the use of mulling over
this black stuff in my mind?’ But I
couldn’t make a big enough effort to
keep away from it! I kept on thinking
of you and little Oscar, with all those
gay people talking and laughing and
handsome women. ‘My God,’ I said to
myself, ‘if I can’t stop thinking of this,
I shall have to get up and go outside.’
So I took up my glass of champagne,
which I hadn’t touched,—never drink
it, as you remember; it was the stuff old
Oscar used to start in with when he was
on a blow-out—that is why I never
could bear it.</p>
<p>“That first glass made everything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>
easier and more natural. It untied the
knots in my face. And another made
things pleasant; well, there’s no use in
going on! I made a beastly fool of myself,
sang that fool song, disgraced you
before all your friends. Showed them
how you had married just a hand out
of the mines! My God, I should think
you’d <i>want</i> me to go away and never
come back!”</p>
<p>He had dropped into a chair, and lay
there limp, his head fallen forward upon
his hands. She listened to him with increasing
wonder, trying to comprehend
the significance of his abasement. What
was it which he made so much of?
Singing a silly song, drinking too much
wine. That was his man’s way of escape
from the pain of living, which had
fastened upon them both. Thus he had
tried to live for himself and defy God
to make him wretched!</p>
<p>And her way? She reddened with the
shame of it, and was silent. Both of
them, so she saw, had been trying to flee<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>
from the grief that had overtaken them;
to take their lives out of the place of despair,
away to some new peace and joy.
She saw it now very clearly, and she
knew suddenly that through that gate
there was no escape for either of them.
The trap that had caught them was set
in the obscure past and was made secure.</p>
<p>“But you would not really leave me,
Olaf? You could not. You could not!
I and our child would follow you in your
thoughts everywhere.”</p>
<p>She knelt beside him and took his
head in her hands.</p>
<p>“I tried to run away, too. And I
could not. Nor could you. Mine was so
much worse than yours! I will tell you
some day. Yours was nothing to me,
nothing. Believe me. I think nothing
of it, nothing more than if you spilled a
glass of wine on my dress, or went out
in the rain without your coat, or did
something else foolish. Don’t think of
that, Olaf! We have so much else to
feel, you and I.”</p>
<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_090.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<p class="caption">“<span class="smcap">She knelt beside him and took his head<br />
in her hands.</span>”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>She drew his head to her. She was
his mother and yearned, and yet was
afraid, also. The man’s tired eyes
looked into her eyes. He, too, had
suffered in his male way as she had
suffered. About his face there was a
look, wistful and young and tender, such
as it had been in the past when she had
loved him passionately. She kissed
his lips, thus wiping away his self-contempt.</p>
<p>“Do you remember, Olaf?” she
whispered. “Do you remember the
night you carried me down the mountain,
when the horse stumbled on the
trail and you were afraid to trust him
again? Your arms were a shield about
my body. I want them now, my
husband!”</p>
<p>He saw that black night, the slipping
sand and rocks beneath his feet, the precious
body in his arms, the white face
upturned to his. When he could go no
farther safely, they had camped among
the rocks under a scrawny fir. He had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>
built a wind screen of brush against a
boulder, and they had crawled within.
There he had held her locked in his
arms the whole night that she might
rest while he watched and loved....</p>
<p>Other memories of their ardent years
crowded this one. First she had taken
the journeys with him, going to the
mines, living in the camps. Then she
had waited for him here at home, where
he had placed her among her old friends,
in this pleasant country house. He was
often away, but he worked the more
fiercely to get back to her. Once
he had come wilfully, without warning,
from British Columbia, three thousand
six hundred miles, without a pause,
hurled on his course by an irresistible
desire to know that his joy was real, to
see that she lived on the earth still and
was his. He had arrived after dinner,
and found her dressed to go out,—tall,
white, beautiful,—more wonderful than
in the camp he had dreamed she was.
When she looked up and saw him,—the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>
unexpected, welcome one,—she had
given a glad cry, and lifted her arms
and face to his, careless of the maid, her
gown, his travel-stained self....</p>
<p>“I had two or three days, and I
thought I would come on,” he had said,
repaid already in good fact....</p>
<p>She had her memories, too. Her
woman’s life was woven with the little
intimacies of the seven married years.
Their life together, their passion and
joy,—it blazed before her in the stillness.
She had thought it was to go on like
that always, for many years, fading perchance
when they were old into something
gentler, less abundant. Now,
suddenly, in the space of a few days, she
was brought to see that such joy had
a term set within her own experience.
It was past!</p>
<p>“We have loved so much,” she murmured.
“We have been so happy.
That is over now.”</p>
<p>He nodded, bringing her hands to his
lips. He knew what she meant. The old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>
joy, the careless pleasure of their early
selves, had gone under the shadow.
Something out of them had been created
in those hours of freedom, which was
now asserting its control over them,—something
from the past, unknown to
them, gathered up and expressed through
them. <i>They</i> were now to be less, and
this which had come out of them was to
be more. Sorrow or satisfaction, it was
all one,—it was to be met and borne
with. Youth had passed; selfish joy had
been blown away—there remained their
child.</p>
<p>“Little Oscar,” the mother murmured.
“We must do what we can for him,
mustn’t we?”</p>
<p>“All that can be done!” he exclaimed.</p>
<p>“Live with him, take him away from
here, fight for him,” she whispered.
“As long as he lives. As long as we
live!” Her tears fell upon his hands.</p>
<p>“Yes! that is it. We must fight together
for the child as long as we live!”</p>
<p>And they both divined something of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>
how the years must be, living not for
themselves but largely for their child,
changing their life as his needs changed,
preparing to struggle with him against
the odds of his fate.</p>
<p>“Where is he?” he asked.</p>
<p>They found him playing by himself
under a great tree. When he saw them
coming across the lawn, he stood very
still and watched their faces, looking at
them keenly. His mother took his hand
and leaned over to kiss him. He put
his other hand up to his father. Thus
they walked slowly back toward the
house, the child gravely marching between
his parents, holding them to him,
one on either hand.</p>
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<p><span class="large"><i>Philosophy Four</i></span></p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>A STORY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. By
<span class="smcap">Owen Wister</span>, author of “The Virginian,” etc.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="large"><i>Man Overboard</i></span></p>
<div class="blockquot">
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<div class="blockquot">
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<div class="chapter">
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<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p>
<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p>
<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p>
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<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67115 ***</div>
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